The Endgame
Newsletter #109 - Reflections: a guest column by David Goldbloom
Toronto, June 8, 2025
Reflections, by Dr. David Goldbloom. David Goldbloom is a retired psychiatrist, formerly at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, and Professor Emeritus at the University of Toronto. He delivered these reflections on June 3 at the Harvard College Class of 1975 50th Reunion, Memorial Service for Fallen Classmates, Memorial Church, Cambridge Massachusetts.
Like yoga poses or sustained seriousness, reflection does not come naturally to me. But events that mark a half-century of anything compel us to look back—with pride, regret, joy and sorrow. I recall a much earlier Harvard reunion where we recent alumni watched the people celebrating their 50th and cheered at their ability to ambulate at their advanced age. They are now us. What we didn’t consider back then, as assumers of immortality, was the peers those older alums had lost along the way.
And today, amidst the nostalgia and happiness of seeing old friends and learning more about their journeys, as well as satisfying curiosity about the impact of time on them, we pause to think about, cherish, and honour those who died between the first day of freshman year and today. We mourn their passing –their loss and ours—and wonder about what might have been. At the same time, we feel both gratitude and relief for our luck in making it this far.
Looking back for this occasion was made somewhat easier for me by two things. One is a box, containing my now-musty, spiral-bound Harvard lined notebooks filled with lecture notes and stacks of essays that I wrote. The other is a network of senior citizens who I still refer to as “my roommates,” even though we haven’t lived together in half a century, much to the relief of my wife of the last 49 years.
My lecture notes reflect what I thought was either important or likely to be on the exam, or both. I can sort of follow them and hear faint echoes—of Paul Freund in Sanders Theatre, concluding his series of lectures on The Legal Process by saying, “I’ve taught you all I know.” Of John Nemiah and Stanley King teaching Social and Psychological Aspects of Medicine at the Science Centre, with King intoning to the mostly pre-med crowd about their professional future, “It’s going to be exciting…it’s going to be scary.” But apart from these dramatic intros and extros to their lectures, I remember nothing of the content.
My college essays are vehemently argued and completely incomprehensible to me now, as if written in a foreign language evidently shared with the now-octogenarian graduate student who graded them at the time; an annotated “Yes!” in red marginalia next to one of my typed conclusions doesn’t leave me less baffled. I have no idea what either of us meant.
By contrast, recollection of the treasured friendships formed remains more crystalline. I remember vividly conversations late into the night that ranged from politics to education to girls to male-pattern balding. It was my first experience of really loving people outside my family. I felt I had made friends for life. There were also, of course, unrequited crushes, brief romantic flings, and the discovery that the girl I was dating for most of college was everything I wanted and more.
Reunions on a smaller scale with those beloved roommates were frequent at first, then dwindled as the complexities of our personal and professional lives grew, and our disparate geography made the architectural possibility of a common room off our bedrooms impossible. And yet. We gathered for our 40th reunion en masse, and as recently as three months ago, two of us roommates and our wives—all of us doting grandparents now—met up for an afternoon that included the shorthand of relationships which, like our education, began in the previous century. As we honour the memory of our fallen classmates, we recognize the generations rising that will follow—young people we’ve nurtured, whether through family, school, work, neighbourhood, or community.
Because I did a lot of theatre when I should have been studying for the dreaded Chem 20, I knew people who became among the early fatalities of HIV in the 1980s, as well as those who died of other causes. But somehow the people I was closest to survived and thrived; their partners became our friends through the immense accident of history that threw us together in the first place.
I know I should be grateful for the high quality of education I received, especially if I could remember any of it. It was like an extended visit to an art gallery—seeing ancient masters alongside exploratory new works—and discussing it all passionately afterward. But what I truly value is the relationships forged, relationships that taught me about other people and myself, and enriched my experience of the world. We are—most of us—now at a stage where, for the first time since Grade One, we are not on someone else’s schedule. This gives us more chance to savour old connections and forge new ones.
But we also need to take time to mourn those people and opportunities we have lost. And we do so here today in Memorial Church, precisely because it is a place of memory, of spirituality, and of collectivity. William Butler Yeats said it better than any of us could in his 1937 poem “The Municipal Gallery Revisited”: “Think where man’s glory most begins and ends, and say myglory was I had such friends.”
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Some reader comments on Endgame #108 (“Two kings”)
From Pam Purves: “Let us not forget that Henry had as wife the brilliant, inimitable, indomitable Eleanor! I believe he did not speak to her for long periods but she was a force. Must have kept his mind lively even at their most strained times. Nothing like a thorn in your side to keep you alert to possibilities.”
T. Sher Singh writes: “Peter O'Toole outdid himself as Henry II in ‘Becket’ ... with an assist from Richard Burton. A truthful depiction or not, O'Toole will forever be Henry II in our minds.”
From Peter Mushkat: “Before 'Lion in Winter' Peter O'Toole also played Henry II in 'Becket' opposite Richard Burton. A memorable pairing. No hiding in the shadows in that telling of the tale!”
Cary Lewis: “I sometimes expect Charles to just say ‘Fuck it,’ and tell what he
really thinks about the state of world affairs and climate change.”
From Richard Franklin Carter: “You have some impressive readers. James Turk of the Centre for Free Expression, the Porters, and Martin Levin are among them. I've met Dr. Turk on many occasions. The Porters and Martin Levin I know only by reputation. Unfortunately, I've never had the pleasure of meeting King Charles III.
And some late reader reaction to Endgame #107 (“The Cheshire Cat”)
From Gina Rakoff: “I saw the ballet yesterday with Guillaume Côté in his departing role [the National Ballet of Canada’s multimedia Grand Mirage]. As magnificent as ever but facing the reality of finality. He must have been able to love his much appreciated gift to his audience.”
The psychologist and writer Brent Willock: “I edited a book called Understanding and Coping with Failure. For the cover, I chose a portrait of Van Gogh. He never sold a painting in his lifetime. Now they all sell for millions. Was he a failure? Perhaps your having poured your soul into your work is the success? That's what Van Gogh did and I think I do, and you have done.”
Karen Bayly: “When you pour your soul into work not everyone can do and it comes to nothing, not becoming relevant or visible can feel like total failure.”
The last word goes to Danielle Vachon: “Many of us feel invisible but just keep on and carry on.”
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Note to readers: I’m on the road, and so next week’s Endgame will be an encore presentation. I should be back live on June 22.